


Le Petite Morte

by Phasingphoenix



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8730898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phasingphoenix/pseuds/Phasingphoenix
Summary: Victor and Dorian happen to both be rather experienced in the subject of death. One approach just happens to be quite different from the other.
Or: Frankenstein and Gray meet at a party and things go as they usually do when Dorian is involved.





	

Quite an unusual pair is exhibited at this week’s fine little fete in the middle of town. One young man floats about the room like the ghost of a dancer, weaving effortlessly, carelessly between partygoers and there for only moments before becoming bored and drifting off again. Quite the creature, socializing with the best of them but not particularly saying anything at all. No one sees him coming until he’s there, no one sees him leave until he’s gone. He’s looking for entertainment, as people often are when they attend parties, but it seems he’s having very little luck. He _wants_ to be here, if only to see something worthwhile, but his disappointment in not finding anything is minimal - almost as though he never expected to be rewarded in the first place.

His eye, however, is caught by the other half of this little set. Where the first young man desires to be here in the light and sound to see something great, another does not wish to be out at all, keeping silent, to himself, hardly even touching the drink in his hand as he stands to the side. He is not nervous, no, which is certainly what is catching the eye of the first young man. He looks upon the partygoers with such a measure of disdain that it’s a wonder he decided to come at all.

The first young man drifts lightly across the parlor, materializing at the second young man’s side from a cloud of cigar smoke and lady’s perfume. “Would you have more interest in your examination table, Doctor?” he asks, amusement glittering in his eyes and decorating his tone.

The young scholar looks at him, cocking his head. “Have we met?”

The first inclines his head. “We haven’t before had the pleasure. I am Dorian Gray. Your reputation precedes you, Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Usually not very far ahead of my self,” Victor replies, his expression guarded. 

Dorian only smiles more cheerily for it. “Well, why should anyone want to get far from you?”

Victor hesitates, uncertain of where this conversation is headed. It lasts for only a moment before he slips his coat of pride back over his shoulders and regains control. “People have their reasons. Do you know the smell of death and decay, Mr. Gray?”

Dorian can feel the weight that his smile hides. “Oh, no, I can’t say that I do.”

Victor inclines his head. “It’s a reason to stay away.”

“I believe a _better_ curiosity,” Dorian says, skipping over the doctor’s implied invitation to leave, “is why _you_ are _here_. I see no mortuary, nor murder victim. What could possibly bring a man of your intellect to such a gaudy and ridiculous place?”

Victor pauses for a moment, calculating his own answer. “An invitation.”

Dorian smiles, that clever little smile, and as he focuses all of his attention solely onto this lithe little man, he feels the room, the house, the whole world, converge to form this one magnificent little moment. The way Victor tenses, suddenly keeping his gaze fixed on Dorian, tells him that the little doctor feels it, too. The room is practically spinning, like a decorative top in Dorian’s mind, like a centrifuge to Victor’s - dragging all of the force down to a singular point.

“The answer raises more questions than it satisfies,” Dorian says softly. The pull is relentless, and the two are closer now than before, close enough for murmurs to be ideal. “Who invites a doctor such as yourself, in your field of study, to the light and frivolities of a salon? And who could the sender be to warrant said doctor’s actual appearance? Scientific inquiry, perhaps? Secret little meetings in secret little rooms?”

Victor doesn’t let the intensity trip him up. “If secrets were for sharing, I don’t believe they’d function very well as secrets, do you?”

Dorian just smiles, tilting his head again. “Do _you_ even know what’s brought you here, I wonder? You’re not in any secret little meeting, you’re in the main parlor, watching, judging, certainly out of your element because what can a living body tell to a man who reads the dead?”

“A great deal, as the man reading the dead has to be living himself,” Victor shoots back.

“Living on that golden little line,” Dorian murmurs, the words sounding like a taunt, his eyes shining with awe. “You look down into the abyss, dear Doctor, you’ve sought the door, and from the darkness of your eyes, I’d dare say you’ve found it.”

Some of that pride and defiance in Victor’s eyes retreats. Dorian knows he’s hit something soft, much in the way that Victor’s own comments on death and decay sank into Dorian before. They all have secrets. It just takes a bit of needling to find the right holes. 

But this is no interrogation, and parties are for fun. Dorian lets his eyes fall away from Victor’s, stepping lightly so he might murmur better in the young man’s ear. “Do you know, there is another little golden line,” he says. “Yet another door for us poor mortals to get a glimpse of the infinite abyss.”

Victor looks at him suspiciously, those gorgeous, light eyes searching his face for the secrets he’s hinting at.

“Humans, you see, are capable of dying, and then coming back.” He’s beginning to circle, just so he can see the tension in Victor’s shoulders, see the uncertain expression from all angles. “They do it all the time, every day. Some far more than others. The French have a name for it, in fact.” He leans close to Victor’s ear and ah, yes, he can smell the death on him, clinging to him, as yet unable to claim him. “ _Le petite morte_ ,” he whispers. “‘The little death.’ Have you had the pleasure, Dr. Frankenstein?”

Yes, Victor is looking at him quite suspiciously now, because he’s a young thing and not very social, but he’s quite smart and knows exactly what Dorian’s saying. “Do you know that your reputation precedes yourself, Mr. Gray?” he asks, giving him a sidelong look. “I believe you’ve shared a similar enlightenment with an admittedly impressive number of others.”

Dorian grins widely at that, pleased at the challenge. “I’m sure you’ve done your own experiments on the subject, have you not?”

“In your ‘field?’ I think not.”

“Never? Am I meant to believe that?”

“I know what you’re attempting to do, Mr. Gray,” Victor says flatly. “No amount of dancing in circles with question upon question will be able to mask your obvious intent.”

Dorian merely takes that as invitation to lean in again, so close he’s nearly brushing Victor’s skin, and the doctor makes no move to regain his space. “I don’t believe this secret is meant to function as a secret,” he says quietly. He maintains eye contact, smoothly running his fingers along Victor’s, and deftly lifting the wine glass from his hand to set aside. “So, Dr. Frankenstein, Death’s favored artist… allow me to show you the abyss?”

Dorian has been given a variety of looks in response to requests such as this. Many have looked upon him with acceptance in their gaze, excitement, prepared to take him up on the offer in a moment. Some have looked upon him with disdain. Some have seemed nervous, curious, and these things are reflected in Victor’s gaze, but this - this is different. Victor is a man of science. He’s curious, and he wants to _know_ , and that is an approach Dorian hasn’t yet dealt with. It’s amusing, it’s new, and he wants to be Victor’s trials numbers one through sixty, as many times as it should take to perfect the research. 

He always thinks such whimsical thoughts about these things.

“I suppose we’ll leave?” Victor asks as he follows Dorian through the parlor.

“Why?” Dorian asks.

Victor is taken aback by the question. “Was I wrong to assume you’d take this somewhere private?”

“Oh, but we will,” Dorian assures him, but he isn’t heading for the door. The stairs are his goal, and he knows Victor grows more restless by the moment. 

“The rooms?” he asks when they’ve reached the landing. He’s uncertain, hesitating in his steps. 

“Something the matter?” Dorian asks as he pushes open one of the doors.

“Might we get in terrible trouble if caught?” 

“I don’t see why we would,” Dorian says, gesturing for Victor to go in first. “This is my room.”

Victor halts, fully inside the room, and turns. “Your room.”

“Mine.”

“Your house.”

“That does follow.”

“Your party.”

Dorian steps closer, letting the door drift shut. “A way to pass time.”

Victor isn’t backing down again, no matter how close Dorian gets. “Your invitation.”

Dorian smiles, looking down into those eerily bright eyes. “Your acceptance.”

It’s a blurry moment between not kissing and kissing, where time seems to bend in on itself until there never seemed to be a moment separating the two at all. Dorian has Victor by the face, and oh, it’s quite clear that he’s inexperienced, has hardly kissed a person in his life, if ever, and Dorian makes it all well worth the wait. He bites at Victor’s bottom lip and feels a warm breath in response, surprised, experimental.

Dorian keeps that in mind as he goes, that for Victor, nothing is about pleasure. No part of his business brings him any rush of good feelings, he just wants to know, and that is how he approaches this. Dorian is only too eager to show him, for Dorian Gray is nothing if not a _wealth_ of knowledge on this particular form of death.

He’s certain most of the guests have gone home by the time he’s shirtless and Victor has only managed to remove his jacket and waistcoat. The pace is not only slow, it’s staggering, grinding to a halt every few minutes so that Victor can process what’s happening. He needs to think, decide if he’ll continue now or pause and return later. Dorian already knew, Victor isn’t the sort who stops his research unless forced to.

And it’s all well and good to Dorian. He has all the time in the world.

The only people who could possibly be left in the house by the time Victor is gripping the pillows have to be those who’ve drunk themselves to sleep. It’s late night, very early morning, and a gasping groan is working its way free of the young doctor’s chest.

He chose to have it this way, with his face in the pillows and Dorian behind, and Dorian can’t imagine why he’d prefer that, but it makes no difference to him. He can still see it all, the smooth, milky skin, the sweat-slicked hair, those shadowed eyes squeezed tight when Victor turns his head enough to see. Dorian reaches forward, finds one of the hands that grips the pillow like a vice, and coaxes the fingers to curl around his own. There’s another gasp, surprised, unprepared, and it sends such a surge of affection through Dorian that he positively litters Victor’s back and shoulders with wet kisses. 

Dorian has seen the young doctor around, having taken such an interest, but he’s never seen him look so disheveled. He imagines this might be how he looks in the midst of some great project, focused, paying no attention to any need but one until it’s been satisfied. So clever, so _intense_. Dorian finds himself slamming their entwined hands into the mattress and Victor gives a cry as Dorian fucks harder into him. It isn’t a cry of pain, far from it, but Dorian slows, longer thrusts, draws it out as long as he can, and this brings finely aged whines rather than those harsh cries.

And then there’s a gasp that catches in Victor’s throat, and Dorian watches his free hand suddenly grip the bars of the headboard with white knuckles. Dorian lets go of his hand, letting that hand wander down while the other firmly holds Victor’s shoulder. He leans down, lets himself press all the way in on every thrust as he murmurs Victor’s name.

A bit sooner than Dorian was expecting, Victor gives a sharp cry and tenses underneath him, gripping Dorian’s hand. For just a moment, his mouth is open and he stops breathing. Then he’s gasping, and Dorian guides him through it, slowly, carefully, until Victor’s hand releases its grip on the bar and he goes back to holding the pillow.

Dorian hasn’t quite finished, but that can be taken care of later. He’s had his own fun enough times, doesn’t want to spoil anything for Victor by carrying on too long. So he pulls out, lets Victor collapse, and he surveys the product of his efforts.

The young man breathes heavily, his ribs making brief appearances beneath his pale flesh on every ragged inhale. Dorian smiles down at him fondly, running his fingers over the smooth skin of his back. “I do believe you now. You appear to have never done this particular operation in your life.”

Victor’s eyes slide closed, lips still parted as he tries to gain purchase on some oxygen. “I need to lie down,” he mumbles.

Dorian chuckles, running a hand through Victor’s delightfully ruffled hair. “My brilliant boy, you’re already lying down.”

He only receives a mild groan in response, which is far more pleasing to the ear than any sonnet would have been. Dorian lies down behind Victor, keeping their cooling bodies pressed together, and he wraps an arm around the small doctor’s narrow hips. “So what do you think, mon cher?” he murmurs, feeling the shudder that passes all the way through Victor at the sensation of warm breath at his ear. “What do you think of le petite morte?”

“A happy death,” Victor murmurs, letting his eyes remain shut. 

Dorian smiles, pressing his lips to Victor’s shoulder. “Indeed.”


End file.
